Copyright and Fair Use

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A healthy copyright system must balance the need to provide strong economic incentives through exclusive rights with the need to protect important public interests like free speech and expression. Fair use is foundational to that balance. It's role is to prevent copyright from stifling the creativity it is supposed to foster, and from imposing other burdens that would inhibit rather than promote the creation and spread of knowledge and learning.

The Fair Use Project (FUP) was founded in 2006 to provide legal support to a range of projects designed to clarify, and extend, the boundaries of fair use in order to enhance creative freedom and protect important public rights. It is the only organization in the country dedicated specifically to providing free and comprehensive legal representation to authors, filmmakers, artists, musicians and other content creators who face unmerited copyright claims, or other improper restrictions on their expressive interests. The FUP has litigated important cases across the country, and in the Supreme Court of the United States, and worked with scores of filmmakers and other content creators to secure the unimpeded release of their work.

Julie is a Non-Residential fellow with Stanford CIS. She represents writers, filmmakers, musicians, and others who rely on fair use in creating their works. Julie has represented visual artist Shepard Fairey in copyright litigation against The Associated Press over Fairey’s “Obama Hope” posters, RDR Books in its copyright and Lanham Act dispute with J.K. Read more » about Julie Ahrens

Tim is a Fellow at the Center for Internet & Society. He splits his time between representing authors, filmmakers, musicians, and others who rely on copyright fair use in creating their works, and pursuing a scholarly research agenda. Tim’s research interests include trademark theory, copyright and trademark fair use, and various doctrinal areas governed by the First Amendment, including commercial speech and campaign finance regulation. Read more » about Tim Greene

Annemarie Bridy is a Professor of Law at the University of Idaho College of Law, where she teaches intellectual property and technology law. Her research focuses on the impact of disruptive technologies on legal frameworks for the protection of intellectual property and the enforcement of intellectual property rights. An active scholar, Professor Bridy has published numerous law review articles and book chapters, many of them on the evolving role of online intermediaries in digital anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting operations. Read more » about Annemarie Bridy

Ben Depoorter is a Professor of Law and Roger Traynor Research Chair at the University of California, Hastings. He is a graduate of Yale Law School (L.L.M., J.S.D.) and also holds a J.D. (1999) and PhD (2003) from Ghent University and a Master's degree from the University of Hamburg (2001). He completed his studies at Yale Law School (2003) on a full scholarship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF). As an Oscar Cox Fellow at Yale, Depoorter conducted research as a John M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy. He was a Santander Research Fellow at U.C. Read more » about Ben Depoorter

Recently, a 120 million users mobile application, Toutiao (“headline” in Chinese), got on the nerves of traditional and Internet news publishers in China. In late June, China's Internet giant Sohusued Toutiao for copyright infringement and unfair competition before the Beijing Haidian District Court.

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Former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega and actress Lindsay Lohan have at least one thing in common: Both recently filed high-profile lawsuits against video game makers, charging that their likenesses were used in games without their permission.

When, in 2011, Oprah Winfrey asked Ralph Lauren how he “keeps reinventing,” Mr. Lauren answered: “You copy. Forty-five years of copying; that’s why I’m here.” Mr. Lauren, a Jewish kid from the Bronx who built a spectacular career reinterpreting the look of the old WASP aristocracy, was at least partly joking. But what made the quip funny was the fact that knockoffs are — and always have been — a pervasive part of fashion. Read more » about Piracy Fuels the Fashion Industry

You know when you break up with someone and they just don’t get the message? A few months later, they’re trying again, testing the waters with a few small things that just keep getting bigger. They friend you again on Facebook. They start liking your posts. They show up at a party they expect you to be at. They ask you for drinks, just to “catch up,” you know? And then they talk about the way things used to be, and if only you two could try again. And you’re like, “What part of ‘I never want you to be a part of my life’ did you not understand?” Read more » about Hollywood's Copyright Lobbyists Are Like Exes Who Won't Give Up

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Sarah Morris is a well-known multimedia artist and filmmaker. In 2007, she debuted her "Origami" series, 24 paintings in which she reworked, redesigned, and reshaped origami crease patterns on canvas. Several origami artists sued Morris for copyright infringement, arguing Morris had unduly appropriated their allegedly copyrightable origami crease patterns in developing the "Origami" series. The Fair Use Project teamed up with attorneys Bob Clarida and Donn Zaretsky to defend Morris. We briefed the fair use issues on summary judgment. Read more » about Lang v. Morris

Meltwater News ("Meltwater") is a search engine and research tool that allows users to search for and obtain information about news items that have been made publicly available on the Internet. Read more » about Associated Press v. Meltwater

We filed an amicus brief in the Second Circuit on behalf of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts urging the appeals court to reverse a district court decision that ignored established fair use principles that many artists rely upon in creating their work. Read more » about Cariou v. Prince

The FUP filed this suit on behalf of a University of Denver conductor and others, challenging Congress’s restoration of copyright to works that had entered the public domain. Read more » about Golan v. Holder

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"Ben Depoorter, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, said that there is no U.S. government enforcement agency tasked with policing copyright infringement; the law is designed primarily for private civil lawsuits, like the ones that Malibu Media has filed. But some judges may question whether the company’s motive is to make money or to deter piracy, he said: “If you’re filing three lawsuits per day, that very much looks like an abusive model. Some judges may say this looks like a business model. On the other hand, infringement is infringement.”"Read more » about The Biggest Filer of Copyright Lawsuits? This Erotica Web Site

"Amazon hasn't replied to questions from El Reg as to what use this patent could be put to, so we consulted the Electronic Frontier Foundation's staff attorney Daniel Nazer, who in March was appointed to the organization's "Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents" chair.

"“The basic technology that they claim was invented before they filed their patent,” Nazer explains. “This one is a bit complicated because the patent system allows you to write claims many, many years after you file the patent. If the claims bear enough relationship with that old application you can claim priority all the way back. They’re writing claims for what the technology looks like today and are pretending they invented it back in 1996. That explains why these guys never did any podcasting: because it wasn’t really on their minds.Read more » about Adam Carolla is Bummed About Patent Trolls Taking All His Money

Right of publicity law is a mess. Courts apply a variety of tests and apply these tests inconsistently to different forms of media. At the same time, the right of publicity impacts a wide range of speech--from movies, to computer games, to baseball cards. Uncertainty about the relevant standards makes it difficult to advise clients about the scope of the right. Read more » about The Right of Publicity in the Digital Age

Three dimensional printing turns bits into atoms. The technology is simply amazing. These machines draw on programming, art and engineering to enable people to design and build intricate, beautiful, functional jewelry, machine parts, toys and even shoes. In the commercial sector, 3D printing can revolutionize supply chains as well. As the public interest group Public Knowledge wrote once, "It will be awesome if they don't screw it up." Read more » about 3D Printing: Is the Law Ready for the Future?

This intensive event over two days is designed for lawyers and Web publishing professionals responsible for sorting out the emerging legal issues surrounding the distribution of content on digital platforms. Read more » about Legal Frontiers in Digital Media

"The Supreme Court sides with the big television networks and rules that Barry Diller's start-up Aereo violates existing copyright law. Christopher Sprigman, a professor at New York University School of Law, joins Lunch Break with Tanya Rivero to discuss."

"The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has canceled six trademark registrations held by the Washington Redskins. Today's ruling determined the football teams trademark name is disparaging to Native Americans and unfit for federal registration. But as Hansi Lo Wang of NPR's Code Switch team reports, the team still owns the Redskins name and can continue to use it.